Introduction

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Talk Overview

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  • Introduction to Iron Age Settlements Dynamics
    • The South Levant in the Iron Age
  • Data and Methods
    • Project Introduction
    • Archaeological Data and their problems
  • Results and Discussion
    • Centralization vs Fragmentation
    • Archaeodemographic Curves
    • Spatial Distribution
  • Conclusions and Future Persectives


Scan and follow the presentation online!

Iron Age Settlement Dynamics

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  • The Great Dispersal
  • Landscape Infilling
  • Tells vs Flat sites
  • Long-term trends
  • Different dynamics to the West?
  • Overall trend towards centralization
  • What happens in South Levant?

South Levant in the Iron Age II

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  • After formative period, indipendent kingdoms of Israel, Judah, Ammon, Moab, Edom, and Aram-Damascus
  • Phoenician City-states
After Palmisano et al. (2019); Sharon (2013)
Arch. Periodization Dating (BC)
Iron Age I 1150-950
Iron Age IIa 950-780
Iron Age IIb 780-680
Iron Age IIc 680-586
Iron Age III 539-333

After Liverani (2003)

South Levant in the Iron Age II

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  • After formative period, indipendent kingdoms of Israel, Judah, Ammon, Moab, Edom, and Aram-Damascus

  • Phoenician City-states

  • Assyrian conquest in 720 BC

  • Provinces and Client States

After Palmisano et al. (2019); Sharon (2013)
Arch. Periodization Dating (BC)
Iron Age I 1150-950
Iron Age IIa 950-780
Iron Age IIb 780-680
Iron Age IIc 680-586
Iron Age III 539-333

Current interpretations of Settlement Dynamics

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Research Questions

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  • How is demography impacted by the Assyrian invasion and subsequent administration?
  • How are settlement systems impacted by imperial practices and long-term settlement dynamics?
  • Can a holistic and long-term approach provide more insight on the settlement history of the regions?

Data and Methods

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The Project

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The Project - Aims

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  • Analyze population and settlement patterns in South Levant to investigate Assyrian imperial strategies
  • Samaria and Judah (often contrasted as examples of the Assyrian empire’s destructive role)
  • Holistic approach that integrates archaeological, textual, and geographic data into a spatial framework
  • Long-term analysis: Chalcolithic (4500 B.C.) - Byzantine (638 A.D.)

Archaeological Data

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Archaeological Data

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  • 5530 Total Sites (From Chalcolithic to Byzantine)
  • 14037 Site Phases
  • From
    • Samaria Survey - 516
    • Massasseh Hill Survey - 1368
    • Archaeological Survey of Israel - 2848
    • West Bank Database - 798

Archaeological Data - Pitfalls

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  • Chronological precision
    • Subdivisions for Iron Age not always available
    • Event-based dating
  • Chronological mismatch between older and newer surveys
  • Overlapping surveys and data and missing areas
  • Size not always available either for all periods or for specific periods
  • Different nature of databases

Radiocarbon Data

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Processing

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  • Geospatial database in QGIS, R scripts
  • Chronological harmonization and selection of evidence of ancient occupation (settlements) only

  • Long-term fluctuation of population estimates, Summed Probability Distribution of radiocarbon dates, Aoristic Approaches and Randomization for archaeological data (Palmisano et al. 2017, 2019)

Example of Aoristic sum (Palmisano 2023)

Types of Rank-Size curves (Crema 2013)

Results

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Rank-size - Samaria and Judah

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Regional trends highlight differences between Samaria and Judah

Rank-size - Samaria

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  • No strong centralization in IA IIa (950-780 BC)
  • Process towards a pronounced centralization already in IA IIb (780-680 BC)
  • Birth and rise of Samaria as capital (IA IIa/b) and then provincial centre (IA IIb/c)
  • Less sites in IA IIc (680-586 BC) but more primate curve
  • Probably a result of Assyrian administration
  • This pattern lingers until Iron Age III (539-333 BC)

Rank-size - Judah

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  • No strong centralization in IA IIa (950-780)
  • Zipfian-like distributioun in Iron Age IIb (780-680 BC) (“formative” stages of Jerusalem)
  • Centralization clearly evident in Iron Age IIc (680-586 BC)
  • Less sites in general for IA subphases

Reoccupations and Settlement Continuity

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  • Reoccupation trends are not as informative
  • The strong continuity might just be a void in the documentation for Iron Age IIc

Samaria

Judah

Reoccupations - Spatial Distribution

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  • Spatial distribution of IA IIa-b sites
    • Strong continuation of occupation in the north, new foundation in southern samaria and southern judah

NB: Only sites surely dated to each IA subperiod are shown on the map

Reoccupations - Spatial Distribution

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  • Spatial Distribution of “abandoned” IA IIc (680-586 BC) sites might indicate issues of sites chronological attribution
  • Or, chronological period including fall of Neo-Assyrian empire
  • General tendency of assigning IA II pottery to early phases
  • Abandonment almost exactly correspond to specific surveys
  • A different picture if we take into consideration all general IA II sites
  • Issues with Judah and Iron Age IIc

NB: Only sites surely dated to each IA subperiod are shown on the map

Radiocarbon Summed Probability Distribution (SPD)

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  • Long term analysis of radiocarbon dates show demographic fluctuations (estimates)
  • Comparison with exponential model: statistically significant increase in the transition between LB/IA I (1300-1150 BC) and IA I/IIa (1150-780 BC)
  • Gradual decline but artificial drop for later periods

Radiocarbon Summed Probability Distribution (SPD)

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  • Permutation Plot of radiocarbon dates
  • Systematic and quantitative method to compare regional divergences in demographic fluctuations (Crema et al. 2016)
  • No significant differences in Iron Age
  • Curves follow more or less the same pattern
  • Minor differences in the LBA

Multi-proxy approaches

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  • Archaeodemographic Proxies highlight similar patterns regarding population
  • Small differences in the timing of the pop. increase (slightly earlier and more significant in Samaria)
  • Judah: gradual growth up to the IBA and minor fluctuations in MBA II-III
    • Larger growth in Iron Age appears slightly later than in Samaria (3100 BP)
  • Samaria: major peaks, higher growth from ca. (3200 BP)
    • Larger sites in general

Multi-scalar approaches - Samaria and Jerusalem

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  • Smaller settlements filling up spaces between IA I medium-sized sites
  • Samaria rising as the major center in the area

Samaria - IA I

Samaria - IA II

Multi-scalar approaches - Samaria and Jerusalem

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  • Modern city prevented evaluation of immediate surroundings of ancient town
  • Structure of small and medium-sized settlements

Jerusalem - IA I

Jerusalem - IA II

Discussion - Iron Age II in context

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After Squitieri (2024)

Discussion

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  • Trends that appears to be confirmed by archaeo-demographic proxies
  • Very similar demographic curves and fluctuations for Samaria and Judah
    • If deep settlement system difference, the two curves would have been divergent, or profoundly different
    • Settlement system restructuring/ruralization (Samaria) and later centralization (Judah) evident from the rank-size curves

Archaeodemographic proxies for Southern Levant (Palmisano et al. 2021)

Discussion

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Samaria

Judah

Conclusions

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Conclusions

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  • Generally, an IA-like trend of settlement dispersal and centralization is visible in both regions
  • However, regional differences
    • Samaria seems to attain a primate curve (centralization) earlier (IA IIb) than Judah (IA IIc)
    • Possibly an effect of the integration inside the assyirian provincial administration
  • Demographic trends do not show significant differences between the two regions
    • The concept of two separate trajectories based on destruction and flourish cannot be supported
  • Chronological issues prevents (for now) a deeper evaluation of IA IIc, especially from a spatial standpoint

Future perspectives

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  • Systematic integration of historical sources (ARMEP - Novotny and Radner 2018)
  • Publication of the dataset and analyses in the respective online repositories


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